tick, tock...

In most homes, time creeps through on silent cat feet, delivered up digitally with only blinking to mark its passage. In our home, time clunks through in work boots with the ticking of an old wall clock with Westminster chimes. It was part of our first furniture purchase... an old, round, oak table with six chairs, a secretary and the clock... all bought for the grand sum of three hundred dollars thirty nine years ago in Waco, Texas.
As we have moved from state to state, job to job, home to home, the clock was always the first thing we unpacked. It is a simple wooden rectangle, no frills or furbelows, leaded beveled glass below with a plain metal face above, beautiful in its simplicity. It requires attention and must be wound every week. It must be hung level so the pendulum will swing evenly to prevent time from staggering to a halt. Every ten or fifteen years it goes to the shop for maintenance and returns home as good as new. Every quarter hour and hour, the voice of the clock sings out reminding us of times passing.
I love the sweet sound of the old clock’s voice. I pause and listen as the full song rings out at the top of the hour and sing along. The clock’s song reminds me of my life’s song composed in small passages of time, each note marking the gift of life which I have been given. The nagging writer of Ecclesiastes says “I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those who have skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For men and women do not know their time.”
Our old clock has helped me know my time.
When I sit in the living room, close my eyes and listen to the tick tock voice, I remember and hear my past... our young voices in our first home, having friends over, bringing our first child home, family visiting (it is Tuesday... it must be time for Pitts to come.), Dulci barking, laughter and tears... our children growing, getting up to go to school, checking the clock to see if we are late as we dash out the door... giggles and wails of childhood marked by the punctuation of the clock’s timekeeping...every Sunday morning, all dressed up in our Sunday best, walking out the door going to church, checking to see how late we are...time seeming to stop as we heard word of death’s passage through our lives, friends, sister, mother, father...children leave home and silence descends as the furious rush of growing up fades into college, marriage and adulthood... the old clock seems louder in the quiet... I sit and remember and give thanks. I do know my time and it has been a good gift. My time is not gathered up in a bottle but an open, overflowing cup, full of good and evil, laughter and tears, friends and family, bane and blessing. I am looking carefully as I walk, trying to walk as a wise one, making the most of my time, heeding the call in Ephesians to awake and search for the light which comes from Christ. Thanks be to God for old clocks with sweet chimes to remind me of the gift of time.

holy heehaw voices

Shirley T and Blacknosed Kate have been with us for a month or two. They are small Jesus donkeys with the black cross on their backs. They stepped off the trailer, looked around, sniffed and smelled, put Junie B in her place by kicking her in the nose when she got too pushy, and began to graze. For the first month they were silent. We kept waiting for the heehaws to commence but they had nothing to say. When the farrier worked on their hooves, they were silent. When Junie B tried to play with them, they had nothing to say. But early one morning, for no reason apparent to us, the concert of donkey voices lifted in conversation and songs began. Our days now begin with sunrise and donkey song. When visitors come, or strange dogs run through the pasture, if they are hungry or if they are just in the mood, the sweet ragged heehaws float over the fence as the girls greet their world. They have found their voice in their new home and are giving it all they’ve got. I wonder if there is an American Idol program for donkeys?
I’ve been thinking about how we humans find our voices. For years I was unable to speak feelings of anger and frustration without dissolving in tears. I would have to wait a day to process internally before I could name and speak my intense feelings. Like the donkeys, one day an invisible shift occurred and I began to speak.
Writing has become one of my most precious ways to speak. I have begun reading journals others have written and am caught up in word time travel, making friends with those who have written their lives down day by day. When I look at other peoples’ blogs (our current way to self-publish journals) I am aware of the still strong need to be known and remembered through words. Somehow the act of writing our lives assures us that insignificant as our lives may be in the grand scheme of things, we really matter, and we become better people through the process. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations “Remember to retire into this little territory of your own, and above all do not distract or strain yourself...Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will always bubble up if you will ever dig.”

-----------a ninety minute interlude for feeding the horses, scooping poop from the stalls, relocating the electric fence for grazing, pulling bean vines in mama’s garden for the cows, feeding the cows hay and vines------------- So much for distractions and strain...

Finding my voice has also come through accomplishment of long held dreams. Returning to college to take art classes helped me rediscover the artist within and led me to teaching others how to honor the artists they already were within. Feeding and tending livestock has brought me out of the house into the world of creatures that surrounds us. Sacred dancing helped me find my body’s voice so that my soul could take wing and fly. Taking riding lessons with Junie B is leading me into new places of self discipline and self expansion. Worship is another place where I speak to God and sometimes God speaks to me. Slowly, ever so slowly, my voice is becoming a truer reflection of all I am and all I can yet be. Like Shirley T and Blacknosed Kate, I have begun to heehaw and cannot stop. Thanks be to God for all the voices of creation, all the ways these voices speak, for holy words that are a lamp for my feet and a light for my path, and for the written words that capture songs sung long before I came into being.

Ya'll come back now, you hear?

Sabbath Sunday was anything but calm on the farm this week. Our usual routine this summer has been a slow, early arising with a quiet routine for the day. Michael begins his day walking the farm while I write, read and do barn chores. When he returns, we eat breakfast and watch CBS Sunday Morning, a calm, hopeful presentation. We read the paper, eat lunch and nap. The afternoon is spent visiting friends, sitting on porches or in hammocks under the trees. Farm time slows us all down and we take deep breaths of peace and quiet. But not this week.
Friends from Alabama were bringing their youngest son to begin college at Warren Wilson. They were spending the night with us so I was busy about the preparations for hospitality... housecleaning, bedmaking, mopping and dusting up a storm. Michael helped in between breaks in the Olympic action. It all got done in time and we enjoyed being with Bart, Linda and Owen. I hugged Linda and remembered how it felt to leave our youngest child Adam at a school far away from home. I whispered in her ear "Call me if Owen needs us. I won’t rat you out if you just need me to check in on him." Her eyes blurred with tears for a minute and she whispered, "You do understand."
Monday afternoon, friends who have known us for nearly forty years came. One couple now li ve in Black Mountain and it has been a joy to be close again. Cannan and James were church, seminary and neighbor friends. I babysat her kids, taught them piano lessons, and watched them grow up. We belonged to the "Ladies Aid Club that Comes to the Aid of the Ladies", met once a month, and ate in every restaurant on Bardstown Road in Louisville, Kentucky. We were there when she and James married ,celebrating their finding and loving one another. The other couple, Andy and Judy, knew us before we were married. We sat last night remembering how we met and the part Andy played in our courtship drama. He and Judy live in Fort Worth, Texas and we don’t often have the luxury of time together. We sat on the deck watching the sunset spectacular, seeing dusk creep up over the mountains and settle on us like a soft grey blanket. You can’t make new old friends
Earlier in the weekend our friend Tara dropped in with one of her sons. We hung out, lounged around, looked at the horses and donkeys, caught up, celebrated the good in our lives and remembered some of the past. Tim and Jeannie, David and Di joined us on the front porch Sunday morning for a farm meeting. The meeting ended but the hanging around continued. No rush, no push, no anxiety... just being. We laughed about our Saturday visitor to the farm, a black bear who cleaned out Tim and Jeannie’s bird feeder. The bear was thin and hungry and the bird seed had fruit and nuts in it. When Jeannie c alled, we all rushed quietly to see him before he melted back into the woods.
A busy weekend... a time full of work and play... connection to people we love who love us... quiet contemplation of all the gifts that surround us... friendship quilt time with pieces and patches of friendship stitched together with laughter, love and tears...and above all, gratitude for the grace that surrounds us in our lives here at Sabbath Rest Farm. Like Job, we remember and give thanks that in our autumn days, the friendship of God rests upon our tent. And like generations of southerners before me, I ask the same question, make the same statement they did as friends come and go... Ya’ll come back now, you hear? Come and bring your blessings and grace, love and friendship to us here at Sabbath Rest Farm. We'll have clean sheets on the bed and a pitcher of cold sweet tea waiting.

Old fogeys of the world... Arise, unite

This week I was kindly relegated to the world of old fogeys by a minister friend of mine, identified as one who cannot embrace the whole of the wonderful world of the new. At first I was a little miffed but then the humor of it struck my funny bone and I have been laughing about my new status and membership in the Old Fogey Club, formerly known as the World Is Flat Club. Old fogeys get a bum rap, an unfair representation of their failings with no appreciation for their virtues. So here goes, my apologia for all of us old fogeys.
My first old fogey was my second grade teacher. She was an older woman who still dressed in the style of her youth, the thirties, with white hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. The cafeteria served tuna salad for lunch one day. It was my first taste of tuna salad and I didn’t like it. When Miss Smith came to line us up to return to the classroom, she told me to finish my tuna. In my first rebellion against organized authority, I refused. She ordered me to stay at the table and not return to the classroom until my plate was clean. After thirty boring minutes sitting alone in an empty cafeteria, I choked the offending tuna down and went to class where I promptly threw the tuna up. This was not a promising introduction to old fogeys.
My favorite old fogey was my Grandma. She continued to wear long hair in a braid wrapped into a bun when women were getting permanents for their short hair. Her shoes were sensible and her hats were placed four square on her head. There were no tilts allowed in hat placement. We were expected to help with chores. I carried out the slop jars in the morning and helped wash dishes at night. There was room for plenty of fun but the old fogey expectations were clear and understood. There was a great deal of security for me as a child in my relationship with Grandma. She knew who she was, where she came from and was perfectly at ease not fitting in with the younger generation.
When Michael interviewed for his first Associate Pastor position after seminary, one of the deacons asked him his position on the bodily resurrection. Fresh from avant garde theology classes and pumped full of Biblical erudition, he boldly proclaimed his skepticism about an actual bodily resurrection. The deacon, an old fogey, was not amused. The supernatural extraordinary qualities attributed to Jesus, his life and death, were not beliefs open to question for him. Michael says he almost got crucified over the resurrection. The old fogey voted for him anyway and was a stalwart reminder not to throw all our past beliefs away without careful consideration of the gifts they had to give.
So what are the gifts of being an old fogey? Usually you have lived long enough to have seen a great deal of change and know that not all change is good and that all change, even good ones, have side affects. Years of seeing the new inventions come in with exaggerations of the “good life” attached to their sale can cause skepticism in an old fogey. Does anyone remember the claims that computers would lead to a paperless society thus saving huge amounts of trees and trash? Now anyone can make multiple copies easily and most of us do. It seems to me that the days of carbon paper and mimeograph machines reduced paper use because they were time consuming to operate. The interstate system, built during my lifetime, was viewed as a way for our large country to connect easily and quickly. One of the unintended consequences was the near demise of train and bus travel. Now feeling the crunch of high gas prices, our resources for group transportation are limited.
Our friend Dan, who lives in Beijing, tells of the challenges of living in a country and a city in a state of rapid change. After visiting the doctor for a checkup, he returned for a followup appointment in a month and found the whole block razed with a new skyscraper begun. The changes are coming so quickly that people are having difficulty keeping up. Rapid growth and quick changes can leave an old fogey feeling rootless. Here today, gone tomorrow is not an easy way to live. China has lived for years with a society and culture that absorbed change gradually. Now explosions of growth are rocking this country that has a history that spans thousands of years. I wonder what the Chinese old fogeys are saying?
Old fogeys like me would say... Slow down. Not all that is old is useless or without value. Slow down. Evaluate change as it comes and incorporate it carefully into your life. Slow down. Growth is a good thing and keeps the juices flowing. But unchecked growth in the body is cancer. Slow down. Unexamined growth and change can lead to a life dominated by a constant search for the latest, the newest, the biggest, the best.
Just like the rich young man who came to Jesus asking what he had to do to be saved, we too have a difficult time imagining giving up all we possess for the sake of our souls. What really matters has stayed the same for centuries and transcends all cultures and all changes. “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” This old fogey is not going to try to change that.